Forum:Naming Policy
1. I noticed you added some redirects. While always helpful to fix a problem, I'm confused by a few of them. Example: Changing Erland conDoin II to Erland conDoin (II). Please explain why this change was made. It really makes no difference in the end and would be an unnecessary change. 2. Borric conDoin II vs. Prince Borric. I saw you added a Prince Borric, before changing it to Borric conDoin II. You then redirected Borric conDoin III to Borric conDoin II as well. Here's the problem. Prince Borric, the one you were building the page on, is actually Borric conDoin III, not II. The first Borric conDoin was 250 years before the Riftwar. The second Borric conDoin would be Duke Borric. The third Borric is the one you were working on, and he is the grandson of Duke Borric. Looking at some things, it looks like you have changed Duke Borric's page title as well. We try to keep regal designations out of the page titles. I had done this and someone who has been working on this much longer than I pointed this out to me. So the (Duke) needs to be removed from the title. In actuality, it should be renamed Borric conDoin II. Though before changing it, I'd be wondering about your answer for #1. Let's avoid a bunch of changes that might need to be fixed again. ---TripCyclone : I actually changed that because I never saw any evidence that the Duke Borric was numbered - regnal numbers are used for monarchs, not nobility. So the first King Borric, would be Borric I, and the second king Borric (though third of the family) would be the II. Other Wikis I've worked on have used brackets for disambiguation references not part of the canon name of the character - hence why I did this. I'd do the same disambig for the two Erlands as well. This was the naming convention we came up with at wikipedia, as well - where we also don't have titles as part of the name. (ie, Amidala, and Hoth (Individual), rather than Queen Amidala or Lord Hoth. I guess it up to whoever is setting policy for this Wiki to decide the convention they want, but it avoids a lot of confusion if you keep disambig titles distinct from the names - anything in brackets becomes solely disambig, anything outside is the character's canon name, sans titles. Otherwise the ordinals are going to get confused with *actual* ordinals - making it seem that Erland I and II are father and son, (not, as they are, uncle/nephew). : I'd prefer to name articles as follows: *Arutha NOT Prince Arutha *Erland (Prince of Krondor) and Erland (Regent) NOT Prince Erland I and Prince Erland II. *Arutha Jamison, NOT Lord Vencar *James NOT Jimmy the Hand/Squire James/Seigneur James *Borric I, Borric II and Borric (Duke) NOT Duke Borric/King Borric/King Borric or Borric I, Borric II, Borric III : I mean, I guess I feel we need something along these lines: : Naming Policy of Wookieepedia - to make things clear. I'm open to discussion on this, but I really strongly recommend disambiguation titles go in parentheses - it really makes things clearer. QuentinGeorge 08:20, January 11, 2011 (UTC) ::: I do agree on things like "Arutha not Prince Arutha". That was something Moffrebus has corrected me on. Yet, it isn't uncommon to hear regular people refered to as "the Second" or "the Third". So that isn't used solely with the monarchy. As to people getting confused as to Erland I and Erland II as father and son, there are plenty of historical examples of people named with numbers who were more than a generation apart. Sr. and Jr. are typically indicators of father/son, but reading Erland I and Erland II, most will read that as "the first person named Erland and the second person named Erland", not father/son. ::: Feist only has one clear example of using numbers in his work that I can recall: Rodric III and Rodric IV, even though he reuses names on several occasions. I have a theory as to why it's only seen in the one example. Both Rodric's are discussed in not only the same novel, but even within the same conversation, on multiple occassions, in The Magician. It was his first book and he wasn't sure that it would turn into what it has today. He needed a way to separate the two so that readers would know who he was talking about. There was a minor mention of the original Borric, but beyond that one mention, there was only one Borric in the story. No need to use a I or II to signify which was being discussed, especially with the title of Duke in front. As the books sold and he started writing more, some names were reused, like Arutha's son Borric. Duke Borric is dead, so there won't be instances of two characters with the same name in a conversation beyond a passing mention about why the son was named Borric, so there isn't a need for I and II so the reader wouldn't be confused. My guess is that if we had another instance like Rodric III and Rodric IV, we would see Feist use numbers again. ::: On here, we need to be able to separate the individuals, especially in situations like Borric or Erland, where there are more than one. The numbers were originally added as the simplest method for keeping them separated for visitors to the site. ::: I've seen ()'s used in names before. It is helpful, when identifying things like (book) (film) (song). Names are a bit tricker. For example, go to Wikipedia: Henry and you'll see plenty of people with titles in names. I think maybe we should hold changing names until we have come up with a naming policy. We each obviously have our own thoughts on this and it's better that we are all on the same page instead of building a bunch of redirects. Let me get MoffRebus in on this one so he can weigh in as he's been working on this site much longer than either of us. ::: Here is another thought. Why not have a page that helps people figure out who they are looking for. I've done at trial of this at Borric conDoin, which was previously a redirect page. I know this is a common Wikipedia strategy when there are multiple pages that people could be trying to get to.TripCyclone 14:49, January 11, 2011 (UTC) * I think the easiest way is going to be to stick absolutely to pure canonical names and reserve the parentheses for non-canonical disambiguations. Also, names with more than one individual should redirect to either a disambig page, or, where one person is far more famous than the rest (Arutha, for instance), to that individual. QuentinGeorge 22:10, January 14, 2011 (UTC) **I propose names such as Erland (son of Arutha). I expect we know the paternal names of the nobles with same names MoffRebusMy Talk 02:57, January 15, 2011 (UTC)